Tuesday, March 25, 2014

Maybe the
only one with whom I sympathize is Sancho Pança. I like him, a simple
man, witty and humorous, loyal and….has abundant proverbs in his head to be
poured upon us! I think for Don Quixote, to live a Christian life is just an
idea; mere theory. When his quire was beaten (I forgot in which scene :D) Don
Quixote ran away ‘till he was sure everything is safe for him to help Sancho.
His action was not correlated with his principle. On the contrary, Sancho never
hides the fact that he is a coward and hates physical battle, but in time of
trouble, he left his precious Dapple and his own safety, and ran to save his
master, who has caused him most of his ill-lucks. THAT is a true Christian!

What does the setting
of the book tell you about the way human beings are shaped?

In his frenzy,
Don Quixote is carrying noble ideals to save the oppressed, but most of the
people he meets cannot see it, they only see his absurd appearance and madness,
and take him only as a madman. We are often deluded by appearances and our own
ideas, and forget to delve deeper.

Idea could
perhaps be the most powerful tool to shape our civilization. It can bring us to
the truth or deludes us to the false; only grab it literally without finding
the truth would be very dangerous, for ourselves and for others.

Did the writer’s
times affect him?

Very much!
Because Cervantes wrote is mostly from his own experience, which showed us
Spain in the early 17th century era. Cervantes joined the Spanish
army, and it is believed to be the source of his knight-errantry and chivalric
idealism.

What exactly is the
writer telling you?

I think
Cervantes wanted to portray the decreasing idealism of knight-errantry
principles he was facing at his era. Morality has been decreasing in the tumult
of new era, and people have failed to keep the true Christian values.

In what sense is the
book true?

Modernism,
in any era or century, brings also moral corruption to a society as a side
effect. And it is depicted in this satirical romance as well.

Thursday, March 20, 2014

Don Quixote
is a complex work, it can be said tocontain both fable and chronicle.
Alonso Quixada lived in a real world, as well as his niece and housekeeper, the
curate, the barber and Samson Carrasco the bachelor. So it seems to be a
chronicle. However, in his transformation into the mad Knight Don Quixote, all
his adventures with his Squire Sancho Pança and all other characters (during
his madness), the story is switched into fable. So, I think Don Quixote is a
fable which Cervantes ‘forced’ us to believe as a chronicle.

What does Don Quixote
want? What is standing in his way? And what strategy does he pursue in order to
overcome his block?

Don Quixote possesses
real Christian quality, as he has an obsession to free the oppressed from their
sorrows and troubles by entering the profession of knight-errantry,
after having read (too) many books about it. He deludes himself to do what the
books said, forces real objects to fit his fantasy, and therefore often
meets failures and dangers. But, fails in finding reasonable cause, he
takes them as being enchanted by magicians, and therefore he keeps
fighting earnestly to fulfill his obsession.

Who is telling you
this story?

I think it
was told from the third-person objective, that is Cervantes’. He wrote Don Quixote
as if it was a biography of the Knight.

What styles does the
writer employ?

Complex—using
complicated sentence (being written in 17th century)—and quite ornamental.
Cervantes included a lot of verses and proverbs—thanks to Sancho—besides his
great narrative style to describe the extravagant adventures.

Beginnings and
endings

The book
begins with introduction to Alonso Quixada’s quiet life in a
rural village in La Mancha. But immediately after that his knight-errantry
books poisoned him to his delusion. It reveals men’s helplessness against the
power of ideas. The ending is a resolution; where Don Quixote is finally
woken up from his madness and dies peacefully after confessing that men should
not read books which have tendency to delude them. In it Cervantes wanted us to
understand that we have choices, but also the power to make a good one.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

The Classics
Club has picked a very interesting question for its March meme:

What is your favorite
“classic” literary period and why?

I could
readily and easily answer this one, because by far, when it comes to classic, my
most favorite literary period has always been…

Victorian

As for the
reason….I don’t really know why, but Victorian writing style just fits me very
well. Two of my most favorite classics authors are from this period: Emile Zola
and Charles Dickens. Maybe it is because I love English as a language—though I’m
not a native speaker—and Victorian English feels so beautiful for me, and
Victorian arts and culture so fascinate me. I have tried many other classics
from other periods too, so far Victorian is my most favorite, and
Post-Modernism is my biggest fail.

What about
you? What is your most favorite classic literary period? Do you love Victorian
too?

Although I
didn’t pick any Dickens work this year, still I was entertained by the real
facts about his life and personal characters after reading Claire Tomalin’s The Invisible Woman. It gave me clear
sight of the real social condition in Victorian era, as well as what kind of
person Charles Dickens was.

There were
seven more reviews on Dickens books and book about Dickens, you can check them
here. From the seven posts, I picked one number randomly, and the lucky one is…..

Monday, March 3, 2014

Following last
year’s quite successful Zoladdiction event (19 participants and 28
posts), I decided to host it again this year (and I hope many years to come).
If you missed it last year, Zoladdiction is an event of reading books from the
French Naturalist: Émile Zola, to celebrate his birth-month on April. From my (and several others)
experiences, reading Zola has a kind of addiction effect. After reading one of
his books, you would feel exhausted; like your emotion has been overturned. You
would say, it’s enough, no more Zola!
But after the shock has gone, you’d quietly find yourself craving for another
Zola. Well…at least it happens to me :) So, to facilitate all ‘Zoladdicts’, I
am going to host….

Help me to
spread the Zoladdiction, either by putting the Zoladdiction button on your
sidebar, or by discussing the event on Twitter using hashtag #Zoladdiction2014.

Start
reading Zola’s works when your calendar turns to April 1st, of
course :)

In addition
to reading the books, you are welcomed to post anything concerning Zola during
April.

The master
post would be up on April 1st with a linky where you can put all your
posts.

There’s no
level or deadline, you can satisfy (or start, if you’re a new fan of Zola) your
Zoladdiction by reading as many books as you like the whole month!

I encourage
you to post a brief wrap up in the end of Zoladdiction (the linky will be
closed only in May 10), and let us know how do you feel/think after delving
into Zola works for a month. I’m just curious how you all manage with Zola….